Durza: The Age of Peace
by Zwide
Summary: A story about Durza that I update every time I do LSD/trip on acid.
1. Chapter 1: Shade Dreams

**Prologue**

The nighttime blazed with stars as Durza prayed. He knelt atop the lip of his cliff, his hands clasped together, murmuring over and over again " _oh Lord, who is the only Lord, bring them hither. Oh Lord, who is the only Lord, bring them hither. Oh Lord, who is the only Lord, bring them hither…"_

Beneath him yawned the savannah, a moonlit universe of cracked grass and acacia trees. How bright the moon was tonight. All knew that it was the eye of Khuda, the Only Lord; a full moon meant that His eye was wide open, that His gaze was fixed directly on His followers. _Are_ you watching me now, oh Lord? Durza thought, staring into the moon. Will you help me do what needs to be done? A murderess rides for my cliff now, a thief and a brigand beside her. My king tells me they have to die, and to me his words are worse than law. Tell me, Lord, must I do it?

The desert wind flicked at his dreadlocks. He wore nothing but the body paint of the ascetic, his face and torso daubed whiter than chalk. The wind was freezing. How good it would be to be inside, within the womblike walls of his cave, a _ganja_ pipe between his lips. How good it would be to lie under his wolfskin and close his eyes, lulled to sleep by the pitter-patter of the stalactites. To polish his old beloved musket, safe in the knowledge that he would never again fire it at a living being.

A boy from Chah Salar arrived at his cliff a week ago. "There's been a message, father," he called, his donkey hawing and stamping its feet. "The three outlaws have been seen in the desert between Lahauri and Multar. You know them, don't you? The ones who stole the relic from right under King Skandar's nose."

Durza's smile drooped. "I have, my son. I know them of old. Are they headed this way?"

"I don't know, father," the boy said, frowning. "Please excuse me. I hope not, by the Only Lord. My mother tells me they rode out of the Icevale in the far north, white-skinned savages who worship idols. I've seen some of them at the slave blocks. They're _ugly_ , father, and heathen too. Have you met them before? Do they really eat mud and termites, or is that just a story?'

"I know nothing of their dietary habits, my son, but they do hail from the north." Durza sighed. "And they are, unfortunately, heathen, may the Only Lord pity them. How were they described? Is one of them a woman?"

"Yes, father, she is, there's two men on white stallions and one woman on a black mare. I heard that from a peddler from Farkhar. He said ugly things about her. That she rides without a veil, that she smokes _ganja_ like a man. Is that the truth, father? You've met her, haven't you?"

Durza didn't want the boy to notice the tension that gripped his skin. "That's not so outlandish. Women may not smoke here or in Farkhar, but they certainly smoke in Kunduz, in Taleqan, in Maraqanda. And beyond, in Uru'baen, the city of Emperor Skandar? The women in Uru'baen _drink_ , can you believe that?" The boy grinned, incredulous. "I've seen it with my own eyes. Saw it many times, long, long ago…but no, my son, this woman is a heathen, be assured of that. Not a Taleqani who lets his wife smoke or sing, but a heathen, a real one, a pagan from the end of the world." His voice hardened. "This is _my_ message to the village. If these three are seen, you close Chah Salar. You bring all the goats and fowl inside, you shut the gates, and you tell the menfolk to arm themselves and wait. If these three try to enter Chah Salar, if this woman shows her face, you tell the menfolk to shoot her down. Do you understand, my son?"

"I understand, father." The boy's frown returned. "Can't we organize a _lashkar_? Why not raise the menfolk and hunt the outlaws down? That's what we did when the adulterer from Farkhar tried to hide out near the town."

"An adulterer menaces common decency, but these three menace the law, the land, and the Lord." Durza ran his fingers through his dreadlocks. "If they show their faces near Chah Salar, shoot them."

But the men of Chah Salar never saw them. Six days passed, six days spent crouching on his cliff. Waiting. Scanning the savannah, his eyes slitted against the sunshine. He stared into the gaping flatland below him, watching the herdboys lounge amongst their cattle. He sat crosslegged through the sunsets, peering through the incandescent twilights, waiting for the savannah to unsheathe three shapes racing pell-mell for freedom. Praying that they would be caught. Praying that the king's horsemen would ride them down, that a leopard would savage their horses, that through some miracle of mercy, the Only Lord would spare him the prospect of killing yet again.

But this very morning a carrier pigeon had arrived, a little steel bell clinking from its heel. Durza smashed the bell, unraveled the tiny parchment within. On it was scratched the handwriting of an old friend. He still wrote in the third person.

 _Durza_ , the letter began.

 _The Emperor Skandar, praise his name, hopes this letter finds you in good health. It's been a long time, hasn't it? Ten years? Eleven? Not too long of a time for stooped old men like the two of you, perhaps, but far, far too long since you've visited him. The sheikh in Chah Salar writes that you still live in your cave, up in the Hajar Mountains. The king, peace be upon him, envies you, after a fashion. He remembers the starlight, the way that the moon would blaze over the grasslands, the roars of the leopards at night. He's forgotten all the horrors the two of you faced, back when the land was still gripped by tyranny…but he still misses smoking_ ganja _on the cliff and watching the sun go down in the grasses._

 _The king, peace be upon him, has two requests for you, and one order._

 _He first requests that a shekel of_ ganja _be shipped to him every two months. It's a stubborn plant that refuses to grow properly anywhere else in the realm. Immigrants from Taleqan and Maraqanda have attempted to rear_ ganja _plants in Uru'baen, but they claim that the climate is not amenable. It seems that the only reliable source of_ ganja _is the soil of the east, and that_ good ganja _only grows on your mountain. The king, peace be upon him, has taken to chewing_ qat _and drinking the milk of the black lotus, neither of which, he fears, are good for his health._ Ganja _made him a great warrior, back when the two of you were young._

 _He next requests that you personally visit him in Uru'baen. He believes that you've been closeted in your cave for too long, that you deserve good food, warm bedding, and a variety of women. Once upon a time you were his only friend in the entire world. He misses you._

Durza had smiled at that. He had liked reading Skandar's letters, back in the old days. Just reading his handwriting brought Durza back sixty years, when he wasn't a dreadlocked hermit, just a trader who liked to wander the cliffs. It brought him back to that burning afternoon when he discovered a teenaged Skandar splayed half-dead on the rocks, his white flesh gaunt, his eyes rolling in their sockets. At first Durza had thought him to be an escaped slave, some northern thrall who fled the slaveblocks to die in the mountains. How shocked he had been to see pieces of diamond glimmer from Skandar's earlobes, to see a dwarf-made dagger belted to his waist.

 _Finally, however, he orders that you face the three fugitives and bring them to justice. He trusts that you know who they are. Two of them, Cerdic the Skuan and Cymric of Prythain, are bandits from the northern snowlands, traitors who followed the White Druid into battle against the empire. The king, peace be upon him, knows that you dealt with them thirteen years ago, and spared them from the rope. You are not to do so again. The other one is Arya Tialdari, is an older enemy. You know her from the Great Betrayal. The king, peace be upon him, cares little about the lives of the northmen, but he demands that you take Arya Tialdari alive. You are to kill her only if absolutely necessary._

 _A band of horsemen from Maraqanda is driving them towards your cliff. They will not engage the fugitives. The king, peace be upon him, is confident you will be able to handle all three of them. Once, Durza, you fought a dragon and survived. You are more than capable of handling two savages and an elf woman._

Skandar suddenly tired of writing formally. _But once you've finished with that, Durza, please come to Uru'baen. Once you've bound Arya Tialdari like a dog and dragged her to Maraqanda, come here, and bring all the_ ganja _you can carry. We'll sit on the balcony and smoke it all in a single night, just like old times._

 _May Dummanios, god of the full moon, smile on you forever,_

 _Skandar Auliya, Lord of the Four Horizons, Breaker of Dragons, Beloved of the One Lord._

How ugly it was to kill.

Durza slung his musket over his shoulder. "Forgive me, Lord," he murmured. "I swore to you that I'd put my gun away. But I'd risk hellfire before I fail my friend."

On the wind came the whickering of horses, the low, rough voices of northmen. _Crunch_ went the grasses. He could see them. Three incoherent shapes shambling through the savannah forty feet below, swaying in their saddles, their horses panting with thirst. Durza cocked his musket. He could not tell them apart. He wished he had an eyepiece. They crunched their way out of the elephant grass, passed through a neck of moabi trees. A vervet monkey saw them and started screaming. From across the savannah its fellows took up its call, shrieking, hollering, shaking branches, snapping twigs. Their horses flashed their teeth in terror. Old, barbaric curses. Whips to the shuddering haunches, jabs of the spurs, hooves drumming the earth as the horses lunged into a gallop, aiming for the safety of the cliff, forty paces now, now thirty, now twenty—

Durza fired.

The lead horse crumpled. Its rider crashed into the earth, shrieking, his bones splintered by the fall. The woman Arya Tialdari yelled in horror, drew a curved bow, sent three arrows slashing for the clifftop. Monkeys screamed like slaves being flogged, lionesses roared their fury at being awoken. Durza reloaded, fired again, missed. Arrows hissed around him, frenzied wild nighttime shots. The stench of saltpeter filled the world. Hyenas chittered from afar and Arya Tialdari's mare lost its wits, rearing in terror, her coat gleaming blue in the moonshine. _Ay Khuda_ , _forgive me_. His musket bellowed thunder and flame and burst her guts into black ribbons that tickled the foot of the cliff.

Arya Tialdari groped in the dirt, crawling away from the shattered carcass of her horse. The third rider was racing toward her, his hand outstretched. Durza lifted his musket, aimed for the rider's throat. He cursed as it clicked, misfiring, the barrel whitehot and useless. How badly he had wanted to fell both of the northmen from afar. As vile as it was to kill with a musket, it was infinitely worse to end a man's life with the sword.

He saw them as he sheathed his musket, leaning it against a boulder. The third rider, a northman whose mohawk rose from his scalp like porcupine quills, grabbed her by the arm and swept her onto his horse. With two people crushing its back the horse lurched into the darkness. A hyena giggled at every step it took.

For a moment, Durza was tempted to let the animals have them. The air stank of dying horses and the predators would be mad with bloodlust. Perhaps he should follow them, wait for a lioness to rip the horse's windpipe like paper, for a leopard to disembowel the northman with a swipe of its paw. But what if Arya Tialdari managed to escape? The savannah would devour her. Either a cobra would bite her, or a leopard would maul her, or the sun would wither her until she was too thirsty to sweat.

He could not fail his friend. Not after what Skandar did for him.

Reluctantly he drew his scimitar and clenched it between his teeth. With the night breeze ruffling his dreadlocks, his body paint gleaming bonewhite in the moonlight, he began the downward climb.


	2. Chapter 2: The Duel

Once upon a time, in a little campsite by the desert's edge, he had been the fastest among his tribe. Men from all the wandering clans would come to watch him race horses on foot, gaping as he dashed ahead of sleek black geldings, their mouths white with foam.

He had beaten those horses, unburdened as they were. This horse was carrying two people. Within minutes he could see its heaving flanks, its hide lathered with sweat. Durza threw himself forward, spitting his scimitar from between his teeth. From his lips rang out the battlecry of the faithful: " _Khudaaaaaaaya!"_

Cymric of Prythain whirled around, his heart a snaredrum, his guts twisting themselves into knots. He wrenched his spurs into the belly of his horse, ignoring its agonized whinny. "Arya," he rasped. "Arya, get off the horse."

" _What?"_

"It's _him!_ We can't fight _him!_ Get off the bloody horse, damn you!" The beast whinnied again, blood dripping down its belly, its lips dripping with foam. "I won't die here! Get off!"

Arya Tialdari looked over his shoulder, and what she saw made her blood freeze. "Cymric," she said, her voice hushed. "Cymric, we _have_ to fight him. We can take him together, he's not a demon, not a spirit, he's just a madman wearing facepaint."

"Give me the egg, Arya." His eyes were white with terror. "Not again. By Dummanios I've fought black men, yellow men, and brown men, but never again will I fight his sort. Just give me the egg. Buy me time."

"You can't enter the forest without me," Arya hissed. "They'd feather you from a thousand paces. Cymric, _listen to me_. We can fight him, I swear to you!"

"I've seen men fight him before. I've seen what he did to them. _Get off the horse,_ Arya, and give me the egg. We fight him together, he'll devour both of us."

"You coward." Her face contorted. "You despicable, peabrained coward. How could you do this?"

The dagger flashed out of the darkness, tickling her jugular vein. "Give it to me," Cymric snarled. "Give it to me, or I'll slash your gullet and dump you into the grass." His beard prickled her neck and she shuddered. "Do it, Arya. If you ever cared for the north, if you ever wanted to burn Uru'baen, give me the egg. Now."

She wanted to vomit. Against the advice of a thousand people she had trusted this man, ridden with him across half the known world, through snowfields, savannahs, and deserts. Together they had dodged mailed knights and turbaned tribesmen, hid from dogs in cracked belly of the River Hanamsagar. Not once had he touched her. She'd saved his life twice. Slowly, her blood bubbling, she drew out the egg and dropped it into the satchel that hung down the bloodstained belly of their horse.

They staggered out of the grove and into an open field blued by the full moon. A rough hand grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved her into the savannah.

She stared after his silhouette, her heart thundering in her chest, and spat into the dust. Then she turned to face the living nightmare who exploded out of the trees to kill her.

He raced toward her like some wraith escaping the bowels of hell, his body smattered head to toe by white handprints, his scimitar shining in the starlight. For the first time in uncounted decades their eyes met, and in her belly stirred an old hatred, a hatred bred on a thousand frozen wastelands, when gun thunder split the howling skies, when the earth rumbled under the footfalls of naked dreadlocked ascetics, the universe filled by their howls of " _Khudaaaaaya!"_ , the snow muddied with oceans of blood. He was close. She could see him properly now, could see his eyes, could smell the _ganja_ reek on him, seven paces, six paces, five paces, her hands found her swords, four paces, they glimmered as she drew them, he was coming, she could smell him, here he was, _here he was_.

Durza's leap carried him six feet into the air and his scimitar sliced down in a blur of silver, crashing into her blade with the power of a wild elephant. She fell to one knee, swung widely at his legs. He jumped up and kicked her in the teeth. She rolled away, spitting blood, kicked dust into his face and slashed at him with both swords. He grabbed her wrist with one hand and smashed his swordhilt into her eye. Wildly her second blade lashed out and scored his hip to the bone.

They broke away from each other, panting. Arya's face was a ruin, her eye swollen and purple, two of her teeth splintered. Damn you, Cymric, she thought. Damn you, damn you, damn you, and Durza surged forward again, his scimitar weaving webs of steels, slashing for her throat from a million different angles.

She caught his blade between both of hers. His face filled her vision, bleached, skeletal, his eyes blacker than obsidian. This is a demon, she realized, his muscles aflame. This is a demon, this a monster, this is something crept out of a child's nightmare. He threw his weight behind his blade, drove her back six paces.

" _Rhoi i mi_ , _gwraig._ " He spoke in the tongue of Prythain, his voice guttural. "Surrender, enemy of God. I swear on the Only Lord that I will show you mercy."

Arya's face became a rictus. She showed her teeth, her eyes insane. "Never," she snarled.

Durza's foot hooked around her ankle and pulled with hideous strength. The fall tore the breath from her lungs, and as she lay there stunned Durza's fingers dug deep into her windpipe. What a foul way to die, she thought. What a vile place to be murdered.

Before the world turned inside out, before darkness filled her eyes like a flood, her last thought was of Cymric's face.


	3. Chapter 3: Chah Salar

It was midmorning by the time Durza reached Chah Salar. The air was thick and wet, the sky violently blue. He liked this walk, thirsty and filthy as it was. The heat dried his throat like old papyrus, and the humidity made him long for the cooler, cleaner air of his cave, but Chah Salar was a quaint little town, and he always loved the sight of it at the end of a long trek. More so because he could deposit his captive once he reached it. He had carried Arya Tialdari's bound, inert form throughout half the night and half the morning, and his shoulders were tired.

The warning shot tore the silence asunder. From the slitted window of a tall rickety watchtower a musket's nose peeked out, followed by a ratlike face with a dirty turban. "Chah Salar is shut!" he warbled. "There's a tribe of paleskins running wild in the countryside. Get away from here, whoever you are. The town is shut until the sheikh orders otherwise. No peddlers, no _bedouin_ , and no gypsies!"

"It's me, Munna," Durza called. "It's Durza. I have a gift for the _jagir_."

Munna squinted through the blazing morning, and his jaw dropped, horrified, when he realized who he was talking to. " _Ya Illahi_! By Almighty Khuda, accept my apologies, Holy One!" He was a man who prayed six times a day, a man who frequently sent dates and coconuts to Durza's cliff. "I can't see what you're carrying. Is that a goat?"

Durza grinned at that. "It's a woman, Munna. A northern woman!"

" _Ay Khuda_ , and you say she's for the _jagir_? Shouldn't she be kept in a cage, to preserve her skin? These paleskins shrivel like grapes in the sun. Forgive me, Holy One, but it would be a poor gift if you gave the Lord Mulayam a woman burned head to toe by the heat."

"She's not for the _jagir_ 's harem, Munna. Ring the bell, if you would be so good, and tell them I'm here. I have information about the northmen."

The streets were rutted and filthy, lined with hovels built of daub and wattle. Here and there domed towers speared the sky, remnants of an older town, one where inspired men refined their calligraphy and wrote down the sayings of the Only Lord. The air reeked of a million smells, of cowdung and urine and chicken and lamb being cooked at roadside stalls and spices being flung into huge sizzling pots and the rancid, overpowering stench of Chah Salar's tannery. Cows lumbered openly across the street, staring at Durza with baleful black eyes, and emaciated dogs padded at his heels, their ribs stark, their teats sagging.

"Make way!" Akhtar boomed. "Make way for _Pir_ Durza! Make way!" He and his brother Qadir flanked Durza, big men who served the _jagir_. "Make way for Mulayam's men! Make way!"

His proclamation did nothing to stem the tide of people who scampered out of their hovels to touch Durza's feet, begging him to bless them. Men who would have flogged their daughters for leaving home unveiled flung themselves at his feet, ignoring his his total nudity. "Pray for me, Holy One," begged old Bal Aslam, the man who had divorced his wife after she gave him seven daughters. "You will, won't you? I've sent you milk for the past three months." Razi the Red, nicknamed for his habit of _henna_ -ing his beard, approached him bowed like a hunchback, not daring to look Durza in the face. " _Pir_ Durza, my sister, Ruqaiyya, is very sick. Could you treat her for me? If you cannot do that, can you at least pray for her? You knew her husband's father back when you fought the paleskins in the north."

"Yes, my son, of course," Durza said. "I remember him well. You remember those melons you sent me half a year ago? I was too sick to hunt for myself and they saved my life. After I meet the lord _jagir_ , you must find me, and we'll go to Ruqaiyya's house."

Razi the Red grinned like a child, even after Akhtar shoved him out of the way. Dirty, mangy children began to chase them, chanting " _Holy One! Holy One! Holy One!"_

"Could you throw them some coins, Akhtar?" Durza asked. "I have none of my own, and I wonder how long it's been since they've eaten."

"Ach, Holy One," Akhtar said. "If I threw coins at every hungry child in Chah Salar, I'd be sleeping on the street like a gypsy. Qadir! You give them your money."

His brother, a stouter, darker man, threw him a filthy look. "Please mention me in your prayers, Holy One," he said, fishing through his coinpurse. "God knows I'll need it, after I've given all my wages to the poor. By Almighty Khuda, shouldn't that take me straight to _Jannat_ , to paradise, when I die?"

Durza smiled at that. "If you've been a good servant of the Only Lord your entire life? Then it certainly can't hurt, Qadir. Child," he said, looking behind him. "Don't pull the northwoman's hair." He was still carrying a drugged, bound, and gagged Arya Tialdari across his shoulders. "Didn't your mother tell you it's bad luck to touch a pagan?"

The town became cleaner after they passed under the ruin of an old stone archway, the streets empty of all cows and dogs. There were Gul Mohr trees in the full crimson blossom of spring and on the cobblestone road a peacock, the sacred animal of Chah Salar, practiced his mating dance, his feathers shining turquoise and green in the noonday sun.

Then before their faces reared the Kala Fort, a barrier of bricked black basalt, its turrets fists that punched the sky, its gateway a sharp square bounded by twisting calligraphy. The bold white Taleqani characters sang of the piety of the Prophet, Chishti Auliya, spoke poems of Khuda's omnipotence, sang ballads about the benevolence of the _jagir_. Three hundred years ago the great conqueror Malik Ambar had hewn it out of basalt plundered from smashed pagan temples. The rest of Chah Salar had degenerated into a rotting, herpetic town, but the Kala Fort had survived the scourges of time, disease, and dragonfire unscathed.

The _jagir_ awaited them within the ancient, airless hall, slumped in a pile of cushions, a hookah at his side. His ears glittered with diamonds. " _Pir_ Durza," he drawled. "What do you have across your shoulders?"

"Peace be with you too, Mulayam amou'Hadiqa," Durza said dryly. Once upon a time, the _jagir's_ grandfather had received him with honor. Gongs had rung across Chah Salar, and the _jagir's_ grandfather had met him at the town's very gates, a garland of white flowers in his hands. "Praise Almighty Khuda that you've returned alive from the north, Holy One," Lord Amr amou'Babaq had said, kneeling at Durza's feet. "How could we ever doubt that you'd smash the paleskins? We've lit a bonfire to celebrate your arrival, and slaughtered one of our finest sheep. Please eat with us."

His grandson seemed incapable of similar hospitality. "May I deposit her on the carpet?" Durza asked.

"Yes, but softly. I assume she's meant for someone's harem. Is she a northron? I've never possessed such a woman before."

"It's a sin to touch someone as heathen as this woman, lord Mulayam." Clearly the _jagir_ 's father had failed to teach his son anything about religion, as well as the rules of basic courtesy. "Almighty Khuda doesn't scorn the man who takes a Taleqani or a Maraqandi to wife, or even a Tatar, but this woman comes from the snowlands of the furthest north, where they drink human blood and sacrifice their own children to demons. I found her with two other northrons by my cliff."

"Did you kill them?"

"I killed one of them, may Khuda forgive me. The other fled, but he's not as important. The Emperor Skandar wants this one, however, delivered to Uru'baen, alive. This order, lord _jagir_ , I have in writing."

"I'm sorry that you had to kill, _Pir_ Durza." Durza softened a little at that. "At least it was only a northron. If Khuda would damn me for taking a northron woman as a consort, I'm sure he'd excuse you for shooting some whiteskinned thief who stole from the emperor, peace be upon him." The _jagir_ leaned forward and frowned. "Though clearly you've never been in a harem, or you'd know that when a lord desires a woman, it's better to refrain from knocking her teeth out."

Durza stifled a smile at that. How little Lord Mulayam knew. Long ago, before he painted his body with his own handprints, he had seen harems that would make the _jagir_ weep in envy. "In the north, lord _jagir_ , women fight alongside their husbands and masters. She fought better than some men."

"Truly?" The hookah bubbled, and purple smoke billowed from Mulayam's mouth. "What could the Emperor Skandar want with her? Is she meant for the arena? And tell me, _Pir_ Durza, didn't they steal something from the vaults of Uru'baen? No one seems to know what it is."

"I know nothing of that, Lord Mulayam. I've heard a thousand rumors, but the Emperor wrote nothing of it, and I found nothing of value on either this woman or the northron who died."

"But you said that one of them survived?" The _jagir_ 's eyes narrowed. "Couldn't he be carrying something of value? My spy told me that the northrons stole a relic from Uru'baen, something the _bedouin_ found sixty years ago in the deep desert. I've heard that they stole a diamond the size of a man's head. I've also heard that they stole the golden skull of Murtaza, the Prophet's brother, and plan to use it for some witchcraft. Why didn't you pursue him, this northman?"

"I had already killed once that night," Durza said. "His horse was bleeding and exhausted. A leopard's probably gnawing on his bones as we speak."

"Take a horse, _Pir_ Durza. Find him, or find his carcass." The _jagir_ 's clenched fists showed white at the knuckles. "You've lived near Chah Salar since the days of my grandfather. Think of how the emperor would reward us if I recovered something precious to him! Don't you want my Chah Salar to grow? Don't you want us to prosper? Listen to me, _Pir_ Durza. I'd clean the streets. I'd buy my people a thousand cattle each. Track this northron down, and if you find something of value, I myself will build for Almighty Khuda a shrine twice the size of Kala Fort."

As poor as your manners are, lord _jagir,_ you certainly have a way with words, Durza wanted to say. Your vaults burst with gold and rubies and Malik Ambar's sapphires, and you feast on gazelle flesh while your people eat rice and milk. And yet, incredibly, you have the audacity to tell me that you share their sufferings? That any reward Skandar gave you would actually go to your people, rather than to your own pockets? What a fantastic demagogue you'd make. Where were you when we made war in the north? You could have given the White Druid a run for his money.

But then he thought of Mulayam's grandfather, his kindness, his courtesy, and remembered the miasma of Chah Salar, the emaciation of the children who chased him down the street. "I'll go, lord _jagir_ ," he said. "Give me Akhtar and Qadir, and I'll hunt him down before the sunset. But if I find him alive, then I won't kill him. I'll drag him back to Chah Salar, of course, and he'll be hung, since he's an enemy of the Emperor. But with the Only Lord as my witness I will not kill again, even if this northman comes at me with naked steel."

"Those are fine terms." Lord Mulayam's eyes were ravenous. "A thousand rumors are too numerous to discount, _Pir_ Durza. He has something. I know he has something. Find it, and bring it to me."

As he walked out of the fort acidic unease burned in Durza's belly. Skandar hadn't mentioned anything about what they stole. It couldn't be anything of real importance, could it? Could it? What did Skandar have that three unwashed pagans might want to steal? Documents? Documents about what? Skandar had barely left Uru'baen in the past eight years.

Why had Durza come upon Arya Tialdari alone in the wild, waiting for him with two swords?

In Khuda's name, _what had they taken?_


	4. Chapter 4: The Sandman

Under a newborn sun and a darkling sky Cyrmic mounted the hilltop, his breath misting in the morning air. The wilderness gaped before him, half-lighted and stirring. Leopards made final pounces before their daylong naps; spotted deer cantered from the bush to sip from a watering hole; and far off in the stinkwood scrub a tusker trumpeted long and shrill, casting the sound of his awakened displeasure to every corner of the morning savannah.

His horse was dead. Three months ago he had stolen her from a caravan of gypsies near the River Hanamsagar. She had carried him across entire nations, across Surda, Ghor, and Lahauri. They crossed deserts that daunted camels, scaled mountains that ibex shuddered at climbing.

A lifetime ago, in faraway Prythain, a gypsy had told him that if he ever was to steal a horse, he should steal a Seglawi mare. "Remember, little man," the huge redheaded beggar told him, sipping a cup of tea that Cymric had bought for him. "If you're ever to pinch another man's horse, make sure it's a Seglawi mare. Back in the day, long before I even set foot in this country, I was peddling saltpeter, oranges, raisins, and _ganja_ across the Gap of Ginnunga, back when the emperor Skandar settled it with veterans from your last rebellion. You northmen never bloody know when to quit! I'm sure some of your relations fought in that war. Hopefully on the king's side. Hopefully they survived. Heh."

"What in God's name does that have to do with Seglawi mares?" Cymric had asked.

"What? Oh, nothing at all. But they're damned fine horses. The finest in the known world. Hardier than Tartar ponies, faster than Lahauri firestallions, stronger than those damned huge beasts from the Skuanmark. Once my cousin Kostas rustled four Seglawi mares from some nomads from the desert. By every god yet to be invented, you should have seen their reaction. We had thirty, forty of the buggers after us on camelback. You should have heard the bloody names they called us. But we were on Seglawi mares, and they were like snails chasing a cheetah. Ah! I miss the warmth and the sunshine. My friend, you asked for advice. Before you die, grow a beard, dye it black, and travel the south, from Gilead to Ghor. You might despise the emperor Skandar, but he rules a magnificent country. And if you do venture there, my friend," the gypsy said with a wink. "Try your best to do it on a Seglawi mare."

Cymric had to grin at the memory. That bloody gypsy bastard. One of the best men he'd met in his life. And Cymric had followed his advice. He'd sipped stolen wine on beaches that gleamed auburn and turquoise, slept under desert skies carpeted with nebulae, kissed women with skin blacker than slate. By God. What a life! What a damned life! Most of it done on a Seglawi mare, too.

How much _ganja_ had he smoked in the dawn hours? He had reeled out of that evil woodland on foot. Some foul thing had happened there and it deserved to stay there, out of sight, out of mind. He was high out of his mind. It would be good to die now, he supposed. His horse was dead and he'd abandoned Arya. And he'd seen the entire bloody world. He hadn't ventured even further eastward, into the steppes of Tartar-e-stan, but who wanted to go there, really? He'd met Tartars in the empire. The women were ugly, their food was atrocious, and this was within the empire, within civilized country. He had no desire to visit them in their own land, where, as various gypsies had reported, men copulated with their horses and scarred themselves for entertainment.

He'd abandoned Arya.

He abandoned that thought.

Was Durza chasing him? Who the hell cared? He was smoking ganja pilfered from the fields of Farkhar, the finest on earth. The dawnlight burned amber and red and purple and gold and the morning breeze felt good on his skin. He'd rustle another horse. He'd find a way into the forests of the north where Arya's people lived, and once he gave them the egg, they'd make him a prince. That or he would die, but his mind flew the sky like eagles in the eye of a hurricane, so what did it matter?

Cymric walked downhill without aim or purpose. A creek babbled nearby.

Slowly the _ganja_ glow faded from his mind. Within minutes he was sitting under a tamarind tree, weeping. His friends. Oh gods, his friends. Little Cerdic, the Skuan of Skuanmark. They'd marched together, twelve years ago, when the White Druid led them against the southern emigres who treated the northerners worse than beasts. They'd smashed the _havelis_ of rich Ghoris who slashed their serfs with whips of elephant hide, stripped their wives naked, sacrificed she-cows in their shrines to Almighty Khuda. Together they'd walked through fields of biting snow, slept sweating by huge firesides, charged halfnaked into thundering gunfire. They'd fled from the ramheaded cannon known as Fortbreaker after it buried the entire Conn clan in a hailstorm of fire and lead. For four years they fought and bled together and sometimes they even had nightmares on the same nights. Oh, Lir, Cuchulainn, and Morrigan, Cymric thought, praying to the northern gods. Let my brother Cerdic into Tir na nOg, the Delightful Plain, where southerners never go.

What about his brothers, his mother, his father? It had been six years since he'd left the north. Were any of them still alive? He'd written them a thousand letters. He'd never see them again. He didn't deserve to.

Cymric couldn't even bring himself to think about Arya.

Alone under the tamarind tree, he wept like a child.


	5. Chapter 5: The Emancipation Proclamation

The dog's nostrils crinkled as it sniffed at the dirt. It bared its teeth in a low growl. Torkenbrand grinned at the sight. "He's found one, brothers!" he hissed. "He's picked up the scent!"

The men behind him licked their lips and smiled. Deep in the buzzing bush they lurked, soaked by the ferocity of the eastern sun. "You have him, boy," Torkenbrand whispered to his hound. "You have him, by Almighty Khuda. Keep on his scent."

The hound broke into a long, slow lope, his snout inches from the earth. Torkenbrand and his men dogged its steps, fingering their rickety old pistols, their lassos, their gladiator nets. "I've heard a whole tribe of paleskins escaped the slave blocks," Torkenbrand had told them weeks ago, deep in the nameless wild. "And they're somewhere out in the country near Chah Salar. Now see, we could nab them quick as lightning, and we could sell 'em for a pretty penny in Farkhar. Or better yet, drive them to the Tartar country. Those slant-eyed pagans haven't ridden west in two hundred years, they don't believe that white men even exist. Think how much some Tarkhan would pay for a girl with white skin and red hair! Or even a bloody boy!"

" _Especially_ a boy," Toumani Silla had said. "My cousin's friend's nephew said that he visited a brothel in Farkhar, and spoke to a whore who said she serviced a Tartar warrior in recent months. He told her Vuldai Tarkhan, the biggest of the Tartar chiefs, is a buggerer who only keeps his wives for show. He said that Vuldai Tarkhan maintains an entire bloody harem of boys and men, who he stashes in a tent decked with gold."

A murmur had gone around their campfire at that. They were slavers, men who roamed lands that rang with the laughter of hyenas, men who charged howling into godforsaken campsites and dragged women away by their hair. They were rough vile people from every color and creed, black men from blazing Surda, scarred Tartars from the oceans of grass, even ugly green-eyed Broddrings from Dras-Leona.

Months ago they had haunted the borderlands of Ghor, the lawless rockribbed country that bounded the empire's southern extremity. They charged into the Barakzai nation and fell upon the village of Andizhan and aback their stallions they crashed straight through the grubby mudbrick hovels, burning the gardens of melon and pomegranate, riding the screaming Barakzai beneath their hooves. Toumani Silla and ten others destroyed the menfolk with roaring musketfire while Torkenbrand and his band swung far around the village, flinging lassoes at the howling veiled womenfolk, hauling the shrieking children aback their horses. They rode away from Andizhan driving forty captives before them, and laughed around their campfires, dreaming of the gold they would receive in Surda, where Skandar's laws rarely reached.

But a surprise awaited them at the mouth of the Barakzai Pass, a day's ride from Andizhan. As they straggled into the badlands that bounded the realm of Ghor, they saw the sun blaze on the swords of the fighting men of the Barakzai tribe, their Akhal Teke horses bigger than wild bulls, their dragon banners burning crimson in the sunlight of Ghor. For a moment the two sides simply stared at each other. Then, with a roar of " _Har har Khudaya_! They steal our children no more!" the Barakzai lunged forward, their hooves gonging the earth, the world filled by the thunder of their charge.

As one, the slavers dropped their captives into the dust, wheeled their horses around, and fled like gazelles into the hills of Ghor.

They found no refuge in the lands of the Sarangzai, who loosed staghounds on them, nor were they welcome in the snowbound territory of the Warozai, where a white tiger fell on them and mauled three of their horses. Two evil, starving months later, they found themselves in the wilds south of Chah Salar, hiding in forests that buzzed with ticks, forced to attack peasants and peddlers for food.

One peddler, however, had laughed when they surrounded him. "I apologize for my poverty, good slavers," the red-headed gypsy had said, sipping a cup of salt tea. "But all I have for you to steal is tea. You're going to be taking all of Chah Salar's tea for the next month. I'll part with it if I must, but really, what are you lot going to do with twenty pounds of tea?"

"That's a good point," Toumani Silla had muttered. 

"It is," Torkenbrand had said. "So why shouldn't we just capture you and ransom you to the next pack of gypsies who come along?"

"There are no other gypsies in this part of the world, my friend," the redhead told them, a lazy smile on his face. "I wish there were, but my people rarely make the trek all the way out here. But I'll give you lot a bit of help. I used to be a bastard scoundrel bandit myself, back when Emperor Skandar was new to the throne, and I remember how bloody _hungry_ I was all the time. Have you lot heard about the three northmen who stole from the Emperor's personal vaults?"

"We've heard some whispers," Torkenbrand said. "What did they steal?"

"Something important to the emperor. Some say it's a precious jewel, others say it's some kind of relic, like the Prophet's skull, or the first _kitab al-khuda,_ the first holy book. I even met one madman who claimed that the northmen stole the last of Skandar's dragon eggs."

"A dragon egg?" Toumani had frowned at that. "Aren't they supposed to be extinct?" 

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Regardless, whatever they took, Skandar's marshalled half the empire to hunt these northmen down, but they're a devious lot, these northmen, they love their freedom, and they're very good at running away. And I don't mean that to disparage them. Skandar set his adopted son Murtagha on them when they passed Uru'baen, and they evaded him. In Surda, Sagabato no Fadawar fell upon them with dogs and horsemen—and they slew him. They even passed through Ghor unscathed, can you believe it?"

Torkenbrand spat into the dust. "Would that we shared their luck. What about them? Why should we care about them?"

The gypsy looked at him, a twinkle in his eye. "Here, my good man," he said. "Look at these papers. Skandar is promising a princedom for them, dead or alive."

The wanted posters scowled up at Toumani and Torkenbrand. Toumani had frowned at the sight. "One of them is a woman?"

"Yes, these northmen are a strange and heathen bunch. I watched Skandar fight them at Gil'ead and at Therinsford and in both places their women fought alongside their men, screeching like demons, their faces painted blue. That right there is Arya Tialdari. Her folk are the most barbaric of the northmen. They live in trees, like great pale monkeys."

"These are bloody expensive monkeys, then." Torkenbrand whistled. " _Ten thousand gold pieces_ each, dead or alive. You're right, gypsy, that is a princedom. If we caught even _one_ of them, we'd live like bloody kings…but even if we did catch them, we couldn't go to Skandar directly. You know that, gypsy, you know that as well as we do. We can hunt for men out here in these godforsaken wilds, and we can sell them in Surda, but our bastard of an emperor won't let slavers operate within a hundred furlongs of Uru'baen."

"We're criminals across the empire," Toumani remarked. "It's only in Surda that we're welcome, and only in the east where Skandar's lawmen won't hunt us like deer. And even then, the _jagirs_ of Farkhar or Chah Salar would shoot us down before they allow us near their gates."

The gypsy laughed at that. "Believe me, friends, I've seen your wanted posters as well. I know you, Toumani Silla; there's a bounty of a hundred silvers on your head in six different provinces. And you, Torkenbrand of Dras-Leona; the _jagirs_ of Kunduz, Maraqanda, and Taleqan have each offered forty head of cattle to the man who brings them your head. And if any of you show your faces in Ghor again, you'll all be castrated. But take heart, my friends! Northrons are rare this far east of Uru'baen, and they are rarer still in the lands beyond. The Tartars haven't seen white men in two hundred years. If you capture either of these northmen—or better yet, the woman—you might win a handsome prize in the ocean of grass."

In the buzzing, dripping bush, Torkenbrand crouched by his hound, peering through the leaves. What he saw made him smile. "Toumani," he said. "Look at this."

Toumani squatted beside him. "The northman," he breathed. "He's even paler than you, can you believe it? He's whiter than a pile of birdshit."

"Fuck yourself, you bloody black ape," Torkenbrand whispered, grinning. "He might be whiter than birdshit, but unlike you, he'll actually get me good money if I sell him into slavery."

"A fair point. Is he _crying?_ "

"Can you blame him? He's a long way from home." Absurdly, Torkenbrand felt a flash of pity for the man. "Wouldn't you despair too, if you were a hundred thousand miles from home?"

"Surda's a long way from here, and you've never seen me crying. But I will admit, I did piss myself when the Barakzai charged us." Toumani peered at the hunched, sobbing northman. "Weren't there supposed to be two others with him? A woman and another man?"

"We'll find out where they are once we take him. It'll pain me to make a gift of his arse to Tarkhan Vuldai, but I'm sure that the gold will make us feel better." Torkenbrand assumed a voice of command. "Take a couple men and attack from the right when I give the order. I'll swing out from the left and the center and we'll surround him. After that, we'll find out what happened to the other two."

Toumani took a last peek through the leaves, staring at the freak weeping beneath the tamarind tree, and shook his head. He'd hunted people of a hundred hues and a thousand nations, but never had he gazed upon a man who looked so alien. The paleskin's hair was bloody _red_!

He skittered through the bush and found his stout little Basuto pony, tethered to a teak tree. Beside her waited Atalan and Ajuuran, lassoes wrapped around their fists.

"Are we ready, Toumani?" Ajuuran whispered. "I've sweated enough to drown all half of Ghor."

"We are, and you'll never guess what this creature looks like. If you thought Torkenbrand was ugly, wait until you see _this_ one."

Atalan grinned at that. "Bloody paleskins. What's our signal?"

A pistol shot blasted the air asunder. "That would be it," Toumani growled. "Mount up, damn you! Move, move, move!"


	6. Chapter 6: Kala Fort

_Kala Fort, Chah Salar, the jagirdar of Mulayam amou'Hadiqa_

 _Farmana-e-Gurkaniyan, the Land of Ten Rivers , ruled by Skandar Auliya, Breaker of Dragons, Light of the Faith, He Who Grips the World, etc. etc._

 _99 Anno Skandari (After Skandar's coronation)_

The door creaked open. She stared into the light with wild hunted eyes. If it was Durza, she would try to bite him.

A slavegirl, maybe twelve years old, dipped into the cell. Her eyes, brown and lovely, stared at the ground. Delicately she placed a tray of food on the carpeted floor.

"Thank you," Arya said, instinctively. The slavegirl stared at her in shock. Quickly she wheeled around and fled the room.

Arya attacked the food. It was the standard fare of the east. Once upon a time the spices would have been like pieces of lava on her tongue. Now, however, she devoured the curried goatflesh and the buttery _paneer_ , eating like a starved beast. How much richer it tasted than the codfish they treated like a delicacy in the north. In the white peaks of Ghor, she had wept like a girl, remembering the snowbound hills of her childhood, but she had no real longing for the food of her homeland.

But chewing made her gums howl in pain. She'd been beaten before. She'd brawled with men who tried to rape her and taken lashes from elephant-hide whips, but Durza's fists and kicks were like the blows of a morningstar. She had woken screaming in the _jagir_ 's hospice when his physicians clamped bronze vices around her shattered teeth and tore them out of her mouth. They had given her poppy wine and _ganja_ for the agony but she had smoked and drank all of it and still pain gnawed doglike at her face and gums.

In the gloom Arya sat shaking. If she ever saw Cymric again, she would give him a hideous death.

She awoke to four men standing above her. Three were thugs, brawlers from the villages with big hands and little eyes. The other was a coalblack Surdan, his face soft and wrinkled. "Peace be upon you, Enemy of God," he croaked.

"And on you, old man," she replied warily.

"I am here to take you away," the old Surdan said. His eyes were blue at the edges. "To the _jagir_ 's hall. You are to be questioned."

"I'm your prisoner, old man." Arya stared at him wildly. "But tell your _jagir_ that I have nothing for him. I'll die before I tell him anything."

The Surdan pursed his lips. "Listen to me," he said, his voice sharp. "You're an enemy of the emperor, and you're an enemy of God, but no real worshipper of His likes the sight of blood. For your sake and ours, answer the _jagir_ honestly. It would curdle our souls to see you tortured."

"Oh, it would curdle your souls, would it?" Did this Surdan really expect her to believe that he _cared_ about her? "Tell me, old man, did it curdle your souls when they whipped the northmen like beasts? Did it curdle your souls when they broke into our villages and put fire in our homes and made our daughters into prostitutes? Your Almighty Khuda is a _demon_ ," she hissed. "He's a rapist, a slaver, and a murderer, and his teachings are a pack of _lies_."

The guards growled like dogs. "Lord Omoro." The ugliest one, a man with the build of a village wrestler, ambled forward, his fists clenched. "May I strike her?"

The old Surdan looked at her and sighed heavily. "You shouldn't have blasphemed, Enemy of God," he said. "Go ahead, Lohar."

"You cowards," Arya snarled. She could feel Cymric's knife at her throat again. "You bloody cowards, you bloody pigeating filth—"a gnarled fist crashed into her mouth and she reeled away half-insane, but she could still feel his fingers on her shoulder and she looked at Lohar and spat blood in his face.

The soldier recoiled from her, disbelieving. "Did you see that? Did you bloody see that?" He turned to his fellows, incredulous. "This _woman,_ she _spat_ on me. You _bitch_ ," he breathed. His eyes were horrific. "You bloody whore pagan _bitch_!"

"That's _enough_ , for God's sake!" Omoro's voice became a whipcrack. "Do you intend on killing her? This woman is meant for the Emperor Skandar! No one blasphemes here, not in the fort of Mulayam amou'Hadiqa, but I'll be damned if I give the _Emperor Skandar_ the corpse of a woman he wants alive. And you, woman, you _will_ see the _jagir_. Wrap her in chains and put a gag in her mouth."

"I'll kill you," she rasped. She could barely see. "By Dummanios, Mananann, and Morrigan, I swear I'll kill all of you. Cymric. Cymric, son of Aelle, I'll kill him and I'll kill you too."

Omoro gave her one last withering look, his eyes pale. "You shouldn't have blasphemed," he said again. Then they crammed a wet rag between the ruins of her gums and she was silent.

The _jagir_ Mulayam looked at his friend, incredulous. "You're telling me that this woman isn't even fully _human?_ "

Ponniyar the dwarf snorted. "She's about as human as I am. Pass the pipe."

"Yes, but the dwarfs are _civilized_. I mean, you're ugly little heathens," Mulayam said, handing Ponniyar the hookah. "But we wouldn't have guns without you, would we?"

Ponniyar gave him a hairy grin. "No, you bloody wouldn't. You humans are some the worst inventors imaginable. You'd still be speaking in grunts and shitting in caves if it weren't for the dwarfs." He took a deep burbling drag, spewing a fog of purple smoke. "And if it weren't for us, that woman's ancestors would have devoured yours. I know all the stories. In the Dawn Ages, when even the dwarfs were young, the world was full of monsters. There were dragons on every mountaintop, dragons that could speak, dragons big enough to blot out the sun. There were cursed men, men with the heads of birds, men with great curling horns, and men who let demons possess them, but none of them, no, not one of them was even half as vile as the race of elves."

"But the elves are all _dead_ , just like all of those other monstrosities are dead. You told me this story on your last trip, back when we went on a lion hunt in the Ghazali plains. The elves broke your forts and sacrificed your kings to some demon, and in revenge you dwarfs hunted them out of existence."

"That we did," Ponniyar said, with great satisfaction, as if he had been there for that prehistoric slaughter. "We were the first ones in this land but the elves came howling out of the north with their chariots and their witchcraft and they fell upon us without warning. But in the Dawn Ages our gods walked the earth like mortal men, and with them on our side we were unstoppable."

Mulayam smiled slightly. "The prophet Murtagha once said that there are no gods but Almighty Khuda, and all others are nothing more than idols or stories."

Ponniyar snorted at that. "If your prophet Murtagha tried preaching that to the dwarfs, they would have laughed in his face. Your Almighty Khuda is a good god, I'll admit that much, and he's good to his worshippers. But ours took to the earth and fought at our side when we needed them the most. The elves had their black magic and their demoncraft and their chieftains fought us on dragonback, but we were led by the gods Bhagirath and Jamadagni, and with their axes they destroyed the race of elves twenty-six times over until they fled weeping and howling into the frozen north. But by then," he continued. "There were people in the north, humans. Not paleskins, those came later. I don't know what these humans called themselves but the elves threw them down, made them their slaves, and bred with them. Some of them found this disgusting. They abandoned the others and left the north and disappeared from history. The others stayed. You wouldn't be able to tell that this woman is an elf, but I've heard her name before, and I know where she comes from."

"What a bizarre story." The _jagir_ stroked his beard. "Are many of the northmen descended from elves?"

"Yes," Ponniyar said, a savage look in his eyes. "That's why we loved Skandar from the start. That's why we gave him and Durza shelter during their Great Betrayal. Dwarfs never forget, Mulayam. Every time Skandar's made war upon the northmen, I've marched with him. I was there when they came against Gil'ead in a great howling horde, back when your great-grandfather was a little boy. I was even there for the last battles of the Great Betrayal, when Skandar and his generals entered the city of Osilon and burnt it out of memory. That was a beautiful thing to see, Mulayam. I love your country, the open sky, watching the animals roam, but I would give it up in a second if I could again follow in the footsteps of my gods. Before you die, Mulayam, I hope you get to go on a holy war."

The _jagir_ gripped his friend by the shoulder. "Maybe I'll follow you, the next time those pagan apes go on the rampage?"

Ponniyar grinned fiercely at him. "That would make me prouder than words can say."


End file.
